[19] Code: every year the Board issue a Code of regulations for Public Elementary Schools. This directs the course of instruction and fixes the annual Government grant. CHAPTER XV MANAGERS “To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to these particulars is more than to answer in a Catechism.”--_As You Like It._ What is a manager? Generally one that manages; particularly one who manages a school. Before 1903 every school was supposed to have at least three of these potentates: over the others towered the Correspondent; in some cases there was no one behind or below the Correspondent; and when the three necessary signatures had to be provided as a warranty for the accuracy of statistical returns, the Department advised recourse to a minister of religion, a J.P., or a banker. But Squire Broadlands used to call in his wife and his gardener. They put their names where they were told, and asked no questions. “Managing” included the appointment of teachers, general supervision of the process of Education, upkeep of the fabric, and paying the bills. Incidentally this brought with it the raising of the necessary funds. There was the weight that pulled them down. The Correspondent was usually the Rector; or, in Roman Catholic schools, the Priest. He carried on the endless letter-writing with My Lords; secured teachers; kept them in order; and, above all, kept H.M.I. in good temper, especially by votive offerings of lunch. In Board schools the Clerk, as a rule, did all this work, except the lunch. There H.M.I. was left to the uncovenanted mercies of the charitable. At the present day all this is changed. The so-called managers have the shadow of power without the substance: they appoint teachers, who at once pass from their control: and they have to raise money for landlord’s repairs from ratepayers who are already overburdened with the expenses of their tenancy. But they have got rid of Form IX. What was Form IX.? In the dark ages before the Act of 1902 this was the stumbling-stone of managers and a rock of offence to inspectors. At the end of the school year Form IX. arrived at the correspondent’s house, and thenceforth sleep was banished from his pillow. There were countless questions spread over nine pages of foolscap, and arranged sometimes in horizontal, sometimes in vertical columns. For the unwary there were more traps to the square inch than are contained in any other nine pages in the world. Two pages were devoted chiefly to signatures and general declarations. (_Dolus latet in generalibus._) Two more were for the school accounts; five remained for the statistics of the school; the size of the rooms; the names, ages, salaries, qualifications, and past histories of all the teachers; the number of children on the rolls; the number in average attendance; the number at each age between 3 and 14; and so on.